Recent years have seen rapid growth in public use of wireless communication devices, particularly cellular phones. Wireless communication devices are being purchased in increased numbers and the types of apparatus which take advantage of wireless communication capabilities is also increasing.
Currendy, with cellular telephones, a wireless phone generally may not initiate and complete calls until it is purchased, registered with a service provider and activated. It is well known that cellular channels are blocked to unauthorized callers who are not registered or whose cellular phones are not activated.
Typically, cellular service providers or authorized distributors sell an inactive phone or other wireless communication device to prospective customers. At this point, the phone is not useable, because it must both be programmed and activated. Programming generally requires that certain information be input to and stored in the memory of the wireless device. In most cases this is handled by the sales agent at the point of sale. Activation generally involves making certain parameters known to a particular wireless service provider within a geographic location. In most cases, this involves the service provider obtaining certain of the programmed parameters from the sales agent at the time of purchase and altering its system so that calls from that device will be recognized by the system (i.e. they will not be blocked). Once both have been accomplished, the wireless device becomes useable.
Programming and activation of a cellular phone is a time consuming process. As a result, specially trained sales agents are routinely used to program the phones and perform the steps necessary for activation. In addition, specialized equipment connected between the point of sale and the service provider may also be required. Thus, for the cellular telephone industry, programming and activation of a wireless phone is recognized as a labor intensive major bottleneck in the acquisition of wireless subscribers.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a method and system which eliminates the above bottleneck by eliminating the need for any face-to-face transaction between a sales agent and a customer or the need for the customer to use any device other than the non-activated wireless device for provisioning purposes.